watches footage of a black man brutally beaten by a gang of police officers in the streets, we (in 2015) are dealing with the aftermath of events surrounding people like Sandra Bland.

This struggle draws a direct line to the present day. The film is at its best with moments like this one, moments that encapsulate what life was like for these kids trying to survive not only the police but also gang violence and the harsh realities that come with wanting more than what life thrust upon them. However, it quickly turns into a frantic, acrobatic escape as armed police tear a hole through the home with an armored car and battering ram. He pounds on his cousin’s door to settle a dispute about drug money, and it’s clear that things are about to get heated. The film opens with Eazy-E, aka Eric Lynn Wright. That is not an easy task, but you can tell, despite its faults, that audiences will easily invest themselves in this story.įor one, Straight Outta Compton begins and ends on high notes, though it loses its way in the middle. Gary Gray (the man behind Ice Cube’s Friday) and his team of writers chose to address all of this in one film. As a colleague remarked while exiting the screening, you could make an entire trilogy of films out of this backstory alone - one focusing on how the group formed during the violent climate of Compton, California one about splitting off to pursue solo ventures and perhaps a third about Eazy-E’s struggle with and eventual death from AIDS. It’s more impressive, too, when you consider the implications of something like Straight Outta Compton, which is about the rise and fall of N.W.A. Though these guys have been building up their resumes for some time, they’ve been waiting for their scene-stealing roles. His co-stars, especially Hawkins as Dre and Mitchell as Eazy-E, are not to be overshadowed, either.

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